Bikini Island meets the Fashion World

"July 1, 1946 - US begins a nuclear weapons testing programme called Operation Crossroads on Bikini Atoll (with Able).  Chief Juda of Bikini agrees to evacuate the 167 islanders to Rongerik Atoll, 125 miles east of Bikini Atoll, on the understanding that they will be able to return once the tests are over."

So what happened to those 167 islanders, because they could never go back after that after five nuclear bombs from 1946-1948...?  (34 are still alive, 123 have died), moved from Rongerik Atoll to Kili Island.  In fact the first 2 were  "copies of the plutonium-implosion Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki."  Since these 2 bombs were nicknamed with women's names (Gilda and Helen), then it seems only fair that we show the aftermath of what some men have created.

Five days later Louis Réard changed women's fashion with the first Bikini swimsuit with fabric showing newspaper accounts of the bombs worn Micheline Bernardini, a french ecdysiast.  I hope that we could reproduce the pattern on fabric to remember what had happened.

Fort Worth Paper covers the Atomic Soldiers' stories- Oct 9, 2011

New Article comes out in the Fort Worth Star-Telegraph.

Marine Veteran is free to tell the story of America's nuclear test subjects.

James D. Tyler stuffed cotton balls into his ears and waited for the announcement.

He was kneeling at the bottom of a 6-foot-deep ditch, bearing every piece of his combat gear, too young at 18 to even consider that this might be the end of his life. If it was going to be, he wouldn't be alone. No one in Company F had any better odds.

Except that Tyler, then a grunt in 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, would not go over the ditch into the teeth of the enemy.

He and everyone else knew their orders -- hug the side of the ditch, close your eyes, put your face in the crook of your arm. Do not raise your head, under any circumstances.

"It was just before dawn," said Tyler, 72, of Burleson. "We assumed that the people in charge knew what they were doing."

The countdown began, and then everything went blindingly white.

Atomic veterans' stories in the newspaper and other media sources

Story:

1. one soldier's story 1953
2. Atomic Veterans' Family comments
3. Did the Government Let Its Veterans Die by Thomas D. Segel, 12-8-2005
4. Never forget the lessons of Yesterday for the sake of tomorrow By Vincent Guarisco, 2-24-2009
5. Listen to Joel Healy, US soldier who saw over 20 explosions in 1957, StoryCorps, 6-26-2015

Video:

1. Doctor Gaskin's story as Army cook
2. Experimental animals by International Alliance Of Atomic Veterans
3. Vince Van Sickle' story
4. Atomic Veterans by Charles Clark and congressman Neil Abercrombie 2009
5. Folding Paper Cranes of Leonard "Red" Bird, 2005
6. Atomic Mom by M.T. Silvia, 2009
7. Command and Control by The American Experience on PBS April 2017, moving story of Titan explosion in 1980 in Damascus, Arkansas where one soldier with DTS died and many more burned and injuried. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/command-and-control/

Media:

1. Local atomic soldiers honored By ROY GRABER, 10-1-2009
2. Atomic Veterans' struggle for recognition continues, despite some successes, Belinda Larsen 6-19-09
3. Nuclear blasts toll lingers for one man "Darrell Robertson" 6-11-2009
4. There were four beautiful mushroom clouds a week. Telegraph 2006
5. August 31, 1957 44-kiloton atomic bomb, code name Smoky, exposed 3,224 soldiers to radiation.
6. Atomic Veteran slowly gets recognition in Canada 2009
7. The shared sins of Soviet and U.S. nuclear testing by Hugh Gusterson 2009
8. Kansas Road Sign Honor's Nation's Atomic Vets 2009
9. Atomic vet recalls 1946 bomb test, Atomic veterans still keep secrets, Knoxville News, Sept. 2008 
10. Memories of blast giver Brower concern for future, Joe Miller 2007
11. 'What the hell is this thing?' by Dave Pugliese , The Ottawa Citizen, 11-08-2007
12.  Atomic soldier Ray Buell's story By Laura Tode 2003

Commanding officers told them not to worry about the readings from the badges -- that anything under 500 milliroentgens an hour wouldn't pose a risk. But when Buell and the other soldiers took a closer look at the units they realized that 500 was the maximum reading possible, that the Film Badges couldn't have measured anything outside of what the Army called safe.

   13.  Segment 3 (Atomic Soldiers)

   14. Russ Dann and the book the Atomic Soldiers 1999

   15. Vet's Site Chronicles Deadly 'Atomic Duty' by Steve Silberman 1997

   16. Ill veterans who had radiation exposure now caught in bureaucratic web by Mark Reutter 4-3-96

   17. Legal Fallout LA Times, Aug. 1, 1994

   18. Atomic Veterans Group Criticizes VA Handling of Medical Claims Toledo Blade, Feb 8, 1982

Book:

1. Atomic Soldier, American Victims of Nuclear Experiments by Howard L. Rosenberg 1980 
2. Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy by Philip L. Fradkin 1989
3.  Under the cloud: the decades of nuclear testing by Richard Lee Miller 1986 (republished 1991)
4. Bombs in the backyard: atomic testing and American politics By A. Costandina Titus 1986
5. Atomic vets battle time. (veterans exposed to atomic radiation in experiments), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Mary Manning Jan 1995
6. Killing our Own The Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation by Harvey Wasserman & Norman Solomon 1982 
7. The Doomsday Scencario by L. Douglas Keeney 2002 
8. Mortality of Veteran Participants in the Crossroads nuclear test 1996, Operation Crossroad (1946)

40,000 US navy personnel participated.
From then until the test ban treaty in 1963, the Department of Defense and earlier agencies conducted 235 nuclear detonations, involving at least 210,000 military participants—dubbed atomic veterans—in 19 test series

   9. Metal of Dishonor, National Security' Kept Atomic Veterans' Suffering a Secret (excerpt)

Of the hundreds of thousands of Atomic Veterans exposed to radiation by the military, at most 455 have received compensation.

Pat Broudy: This article will cover the uses of depleted uranium before and during the Gulf War, the exposures of military and civilian personnel and the resultant coverup of the records of the "Atomic Veterans" exposed to ionizing radiation during the Cold War, as well as the expectation of the same treatment of the Gulf War veterans.

Separation of the slow-neutron-fissionable uranium 235 (U-235) isotope from the major isotope, uranium 238 (U-238), was necessary to build the uranium bomb detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, and other gun-type uranium weapons. Natural uranium is almost 99.3 percent U-238 and only about 0.7 percent U-235. To obtain a few kilograms of U-235 leaves more than a ton of U-238 and remaining U-235 waste.

DU-waste removal discussed 1957: What to do with about a billion pounds of DU waste was discussed in meetings as early as 1957. One of the earliest uses of DU was as a substitute for U-235 in the test firings of the Hiroshima gun-type weapons at Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1945.

A more important early use was as the "tamping" material between the high explosives and plutonium core of implosion bombs, such as the first Fat Man bomb design used at Alamogordo, New Mexico; Nagasaki, Japan; and twice at Operation CROSSROADS. A large mass of U-238 acted both to hold the core together until it could fission more efficiently and to reflect neutrons back into the core for more fissions. The plutonium core of Fat Man was only the size of a grapefruit, but the U-238 tamper and explosive lens surrounding it increased the bomb diameter to five feet.

In addition, about 20 percent of the Fat Man TNT-equivalent explosive yield of twenty-one thousand tons was from fast-neutron fission of U-238, because large quantities of fast neutrons are produced in a fission explosion.

This capability of U-238 to fast fission led to its use in thermonuclear bombs to create more explosive yield. The reaction became fission of a small trigger fission bomb to create the heat and pressure for fusion of hydrogen-containing components, then fission of U-238 by fast neutrons produced in copious amounts by both the fission trigger and fusion reaction.

A negative aspect was production of large amounts of fission products in the fission-fusion-fission reaction from the large amount of DU employed to enhance total explosive yield significantly compared to the large fusion yield. This greatly increased fission product inventory was essentially the opposite of the "clean bomb" development intent.

Resultant heavy fallout from tests such as Shot Bravo, during 1954 in the Pacific, caused beta burns and overexposure of Japanese working on the "Lucky Dragon" fishing boat, Americans on Navy ships caught in the fallout, Marshall Islanders exposed on Rongelap Island, as well as American military personnel on Rongerik Island.

Besides nuclear bomb munitions, other military uses were found for DU. Armor-piercing shells made of DU or with DU claddings were developed as well as hardening of armor with DU cladding. Burn tests of DU munitions alone, as well as DU munitions in shipping containers, in lightly armored Bradley fighting vehicles, and turrets and hulls of Abrams tanks, were conducted at the Nevada Test Site to determine hazards. These uses were prevalent in the Gulf War, the cause of "friendly fire" deaths and injuries.

10. Invisible Enemies of Atomic Veterans by John D. Bankston

as a young Marine served proudly for six and one half years in the USMC, serving twice in the 2nd Marine Division and once in the First Marine Division. He served two years during WWII in the South Pacific and in the Occupation of Japan in the cities of Nagasaki, Sasebo, and Fukuoka during the first 2nd Marine Division tour of duty. During his tenure with the First Marine Division he served on the island of Guam in the South Pacific and as a China Marine; in his third tour of duty he served with the 2nd Marine Division for the second time during the Korean Era.

PREFACE: After suffering with indescribable horrifying health conditions from exposure to ionizing radiation for 57 years, I was driven to expose the effects of this illness and to show what a total displeasure it has been to go through life while suffering by degrees from such a horrible sickness. And because America's Atomic War Veterans in general have been living with ionized radiation exposure, some of which are suffering more than others and because many thousands gave their lives to Atomic radiation, I decided to share my personal experience in the form of a book.

The bulk of the text of this book is committed to memory and recalling conversations with comrades that I served with in World War II and afterward. Some additional knowledge that I gained was from various sources of information showing the dangers of being exposed to radiation and other chemicals. The history of the Second Marine Division and the battles they fought are portrayed in historical archives, and Second Marine Division books.

Primarily, it is my desire to express how discomforting life can be when exposed to deadly chemicals and the hardships brought upon the families of those who suffer from this exposure. Additionally, this is being written to show that most of us served willingly when called upon to protect our country, performing our assigned tasks with pride and honor, only to be forsaken by our own government who foolishly ignored our pleas for help when we were suffering from Atomic fallout. We at that time were not aware of our invisible enemies.

Atomic Veterans are the ones referred to as the ones that glow in the dark and we are the ones who seek no special favor-simply justice. We are the ones who received little or nothing for our injuries and sacrifices while serving our country. A scant few received very little for horrid infirmities inflicted voluntarily by our invisible enemies. Our invisible enemies put us in an inhumane category with obvious approval by the White House and other high level Governmental bodies working against all principles of civilization, casting their devious immoralities on America's military. It cannot be overstated that it is time for these wrongs to be righted with acknowledgements and compensation for our suffering every second of our lives without justification. Also, there is a need for special legislation to prevent these atrocious acts from ever happening again. Every person who had any responsibilities or assisted in any way in keeping secret the dangers of ionizing radiation from Atomic Veterans should be made accountable publicly. By not exposing those responsible will further erode confidence in our Government and our leaders. It cannot be argued against that to have a strong nation the public must be informed.

I sincerely wish it to be understood that I still love my nation as strongly as always. However, I highly disagree with some of the foolish decisions interjected by the shortsighted disingenuous American leaders who approved researchers' requests for human torture in the testing of what the long term effect radiation exposure would have on those who were exposed.

EPILOGUE: Wars not only cause physical damage to humans and structural loss, but they are destructive environmentally to all natural resources from the outer regions of the Universe down to the infauna that burrow in the substrates of the ocean's floor. I fully understand wars are necessary when your sovereignty is in jeopardy or your homeland is attacked without provocation. The masses are the ones who contribute most in sacrificing for the world-shaking inane leaders who are always embellished with elaborative additions in time of peace and war. When nations are gifted with intelligent leaders they find an alternative to those devastating and ruinous wars if at all possible. The world was created for all species to have independent existence. Ravishing wars are disruptive to families of the innocent. President Franklin Roosevelt once said war begets war.

Preparation for war is exhausting, expensive and arduously severe, switching many of a country's resources and manufacturing for normalcy into fighting equipment for the military causing displacement of need and discomfort of all others, which results in nothing but waste. This includes causing a separation of family and friends.

Injuries and early deaths are inevitable in all wars. The infirmities we incurred from the atomic fallout were never given attention. To my knowledge the Atomic Veterans of WWII are the largest group to suffer invisible wounds after making intolerable sacrifices for their country only to be left stranded without any attempt to be rescued. During our initial extensive training we were taught that it is a Cardinal sin to leave a comrade stranded without exhausting every ounce of energy and all known sources in attempting his or her rescue. Atomic Veterans are contributing heavily to the more than one thousand deaths each day in conjunction with WWII Veterans. A dire need for complete restitution and justice for Atomic Veterans has been overdue for almost 58 years. The atomic legacy must continue until complete justice is served.

After almost 58 years of suffering from exposure to ionizing radiation I have never heard an Atomic Veteran speak anything but good about his country. It is the leaders of the land we are discontented with by letting our families suffer along with us. Another horrifying fact is that many of us suffering from Atomic radiation fallout have genetically transferred this wicked disease to our offspring and the horror of it was compounded by the iniquitous act by our Government who allowed the deep dark secret regarding radiation exposure to be kept from us.

NO AMOUNT OF RADIATION IS SAFE.